


burning stars

by cexies



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:25:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cexies/pseuds/cexies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>written for the hswc: bonus round: prompt;</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>"Death ends a life, not a relationship." — Morrie Schwartz, as quoted from Tuesdays with Morrie (1997).</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	burning stars

It’s only after the meteor fades into the distance that Sollux finally allows himself to think.  
  
Taking the initiative to stay with Aradia isn’t something he regrets, but there’s uncertainty to his intentions. Everything with her is so natural again: as if they are five sweeps and swapping stories of ruins and hacking. The problem is that they aren’t five, and so much has changed. It may not matter how much affection he feels for her, not if too much is different. There’s Feferi and Equius, plus his own change through life and half-death.   
  
"Do you think things are different now?"  
  
"Of course," Aradia responds. It’s too vague, and Sollux isn’t even sure if they’re talking about the same thing. It’s difficult to know how to word it, unused to such demands—to such  _needs_. His mind races through different starting points, but each one ends up trailing into nothing. It leaves him agitated, all but muttering to himself as syllables die in his throat.  
  
"Look what I’m trying to say is. Where does this leave  _us_?”  
  
"Hmm." The pause she takes is suffocating, suddenly leading to the realization that she can confirm his worst fears. He doesn’t want her to go, not again. There’s so many things he feels have been left unsaid, and yet he wants to believe she’s heard them anyway. They share a wavelength, full of snippets of snark, banter and compassion—a perfect design. More than anything, he fears they’ve lost that for good. How many lives can you live and still carry the same flame? There are so many more interesting things than his pathetic existence, and yet he still hopes that maybe she still adores that; maybe death hasn’t made him as repulsive as she has every right to think he is.  
  
Aradia pulls him back from his thoughts with ease, gracefully sliding her hand over his shoulder. He tries not to react, but his mind races once more with the terrible possibilities. This is the ‘hate to break it to you’ pose: it has to be.  
  
"In the middle of space?"  
  
It’s painstaking how long it takes for his brain to catch up, but an eventual smirk grows across Sollux’s features. In a flicker of relieved honesty, he laughs: weightless and effortless. Aradia is always Aradia, no matter what path she takes. Maybe they’ve both always known this, and maybe they’ve both always accepted it.  
  
Sollux tentatively raises his hand to brush back the thick bangs of her hair: a mirror of the first time he’d touched her with intention and deliberation. She laughs at him— _at them both_ —the action vibrating through her body and shaking her head against his fingers. She is real and tangible: the same Aradia he has admired with young naivety and matured experience. That alone is the reassurance he needs, fingers pulling back a way to curl into a flick against her forehead.  
  
"Welcome back, dork."


End file.
